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This past July we started to gear up for the installation of the 56th iteration of the Carnegie International exhibition. This exhibition, which reoccurs every four years, is Carnegie Museum of Artís largest and most visible project, making it a very exciting and complex venture and a very challenging installation for a museum of our modest size.

One of the goals of our newly formed Art Preparation and Installation (API) department was to evaluate the way we manage our projects and tasks to become more efficient and to improve how our team members communicate with one another and with other departments. Outlined below are a few tools we have implemented to help us:
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On a recent trip to London I contacted Mark Slattery of the National Gallery to see if he had time for a visit and would be willing to answer a few questions for something I was thinking of putting together for PACCIN. Mark is a Senior Art Handler at the National Gallery and someone who I had met at the PACCIN Conference in Williamstown, MA a few years back. At the conference in Williamstown, Mark gave a presentation on the handling equipment that has been specifically developed by him and his colleagues at the National Gallery. My questions to Mark, however, were more general in nature and were more about structure and responsibility. Mark was kind enough to spend the better part of a day showing me around and talking to me. Between my visit with Mark and spending time with the collection, the day was a fantastic experience that I am grateful to have had. My thanks to both Mark and his supervisor, Patrick OíSullivan, who is the Head of Art Handling and spent some time talking to me early on in the day.

Dialogue (conducted via email prior to, and post visit)
Do art handling technicians fall under a larger departmental umbrella at the National Gallery and if so can you briefly describe the
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OK, so this is it - my very favorite PACIN Article ever!I am not entirely sure what that says about me as an individual but as a result I feel inclined to subject you to a brief (in Ashley terms) intro which you may find is nowhere near brief enough to suit your tastes. Oh well...

The Story-On the way to the PACIN booth located in the AAM Museum Expo in LA this year, while generally scoping things out - getting the lay of the land (or rippley temporary carpet to be more accurate)
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) asset tracking has made its way into art handling. Fine Art Shipping began working with it in early 2009, and we are in a fine-tuning stage with the system. RFID shares barcodingís facilitation of electronic databases in inventory maintenance, but takes the concept a step further. The idea is to improve the accuracy and efficiency of our storage maintenance operations by eliminating several points of potential human error and object handling. And apart from the nearly completed updating of our existing storage with RFID, it has already provided savings on some jobs by streamlining every stage in tracking our custody of objects - up to and including billing.
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SketchUp can be a pretty helpful tool to have in a project manager's bag of tricks. It's the simplest 3D graphics program that I've seen for its versatility, and worth a try for anyone who likes to think visually from time to time.

The basic program is a free download, and the 'Pro' version is about $400 and change. The added functionality of the full version is a little esoteric in the context of how I use it. Among other things, it allows the user to import/export files with CAD and other 3D applications.

Presented at the PACIN Workshop on May 5, 2005 in Indianapolis, Indiana
by Richard Hinson

When we need to hire new staff, for most of us in the art handling business, experienced art handlers are hard to find. My experience has taught me that art handlers are created, not found. Like Victor Frankenstein did with his creation, we have to find the most qualified, best candidates for the job and piece by piece create an art handler. Sometimes the best candidate is someone with no former art handling experience.
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In January 2003 the primary logistics started to be put into place for the re-installation of outdoor sculptures for the newly renovated National Gallery of Victoria Sculpture Garden. Five sculptures were to be installed in the garden and one sculpture removed from the present site before the grand reopening of the newly refurbished building on December 4th 2003.The sculptures from the NGV collection were August Rodin's "Balzac", William DeKooning's "Standing Figure", Henry
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